Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Eclipse and SIUC Start Date

The much ballyhooed solar eclipse takes place on August 21. According to the Academic Calendar classes at SIUC start on August 21. Talking with people who were looking for a place to stay during the eclipse festivities, almost every hotel room within about 100 miles is booked for several days prior to the eclipse and those still available in town want $500 per night for a room.

We will have an estimated  30,000-50,000 people in town for the eclipse, plus families moving students in for the start of classes the day after the eclipse. Interim Chancellor Brad Colwell was supposed to make a statement regarding what, if anything, the University would do to adjust for this but I have not found anything in his messages and the University's academic calendar still lists August 22 as the start of classes.

2 comments:

  1. Well normally classes would have started on the 21st, as it's not a holiday: that was changed because of the eclipse. Move-in usually occurs well before the first day of class (Thursday/Friday - especially for freshmen/younger students who are the ones more likely to have parents bringing them and staying in town), so it shouldn't be a problem.

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  2. Actually I posted the wrong date. Your post got me to take another look and updated the post. According to the academic calendar, classes start on the 21, the same day as the eclipse. Have not found anything about them moving the date yet.

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